


Interminable

by Xairathan



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, Post-Third Impact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 07:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10657491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Summary: On Rei coming up from the LCL sea. Inspired by and dedicated to the amazing phollie, without whom I would not be here.





	Interminable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phollie (larouille)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=phollie+%28larouille%29).
  * Inspired by [who the waves are roaring for](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072639) by [phollie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie). 



Rei Ayanami walks out of the sea. She has her uniform, unruffled, on her body and nothing in her pockets. She looks unbothered by the dark, empty sky above her. Rei Ayanami was birthed by tragedy and has lived amidst it ever since. A sight like this will not faze her.

-

She remembers words spoken in an elevator, some of the last things spoken between the First and Second Child. “If the Commander told you to kill yourself, you'd do it, wouldn't you?”

She’d said yes.

There is no Commander anymore; he's gone. Rei doesn't feel his soul in the LCL sea. She does not look for it, either.

She wishes she might tell Asuka she's changed her mind. She will not die for anyone, now. Rei Ayanami has the power of an Angel, and she is done dying.

But she is not done with death. She knows what Asuka has taken up from the sea: bones, a heart. Death suffuses this landscape. It has become a part of it. It has always been a part of it in a way Rei never has, and never will be.

 -

Shinji is on the beach a little ways down. He does not see Rei. He only sees the ocean, the red waves, the lack of anyone coming out from them. Rei walks in front of him. His eyes do not follow her. Rei doesn't need to ask where Asuka's gone: the footprints trailing into the sandy dunes are her answer. Rei starts towards them, hesitates when she hears the trembling note of Shinji’s voice. “Kaworu?” he says. “Is that you?”

He’s sensed her, or if not her, then at least her presence. Rei keeps her silence. It's easier not to answer Shinji than to give him one he doesn't want to hear.

 -

Asuka's home was probably something like a lifeguard shack when it was whole. It's fitting: the shell of a building meant for protectors, housing the shell of the Second Child. A testament, a memorial for everyone swept out to deeper waters, never to return. Rei walks a circle around the structure, inspects its walls. Surprisingly, they're mostly intact with only a few cracks: it's the roof that needs the most attention. Somehow it makes sense that Asuka would settle here. It has nothing to do with with Shinji or the closeness of the beach. Here on this hill, no living thing can stand above her; with the ceiling broken like this, she can see into the sky, so she won't be taken by surprise.

Rei is hesitant to enter. Something about Asuka's dwelling makes it feel like a sanctuary- _come see the martyr who fought the Angels for humanity, come kiss her feet._ They are all martyrs, though: Asuka is just the only one who would want the attention, and even then, Rei isn't so sure of this now.

Asuka sleeps. Rei wonders if she's been asleep this whole time, the counterpart to Shinji's waking watch over the ocean. Rei is reminded of the fairy tales she's read: kiss the princess awake, and everything will be fixed.

That won't be how it works. No one person, not even one with the soul of an Angel, can fix this world. Asuka stirs; her uncovered eye skitters around the room. It falls upon Rei, all 4’9 of her in the doorway, and the lengthy shadow that stretches into the room before her, stopping just short of where Asuka lies.

Rei looks at the heart laid out by the bones. Suddenly she knows why she felt driven to surface and come ashore. This heart is something that comes from the sea; she should take it back, but the heart is Asuka's. It has always been Asuka's to keep. The most Rei can do is stay by it, so that's what she'll do.

Asuka's eye roams her face, demanding. “You found it,” Rei says into the breeze that gusts when she speaks. She sees confusion blossom in Asuka's eye.

“Found what?”

Rei passes over the threshold. Asuka recoils as if it's her that Rei has stepped into, rather than her makeshift home. Rei goes to the array of bones and the beating heart, reaches a hand towards it. She knows it will be warm; she knows it will remind her of the sea.

“Don't you dare.” Now Asuka is on her feet. She glares at Rei with what must be all the force left in the world. It has chosen Asuka to bear it; she wears it heavy on her shoulders. “Don't touch it. It's not yours.”

“I know,” Rei says. The part of the sea in her says otherwise. It tells her to take it. It tells her to come back to the souls in the sea, to her home. It isn't her home- she's never really had one. Perhaps she'll find one here. “It's yours.”

“I found it. So it's mine.”

“Yes.”

No. Asuka needs to understand. It's _hers_ to carry and worry for, just as Rei must worry over the sea. It's Asuka's burden, all her own. No one returns from Third Impact without one that finds them. Rei moves her hand again, touches it to the cool skin of Asuka's chest. The warmth of the light from above and the depths of the ocean rushes through her fingers. It won't work, this temptation offered to Asuka. Asuka has always been of the earth, and so has her heart. Rei moves her eyes from her hand to Asuka's heart and back again. Asuka's mouth goes slack.

“It's mine,” she says, her face now pale enough to match Rei's. She isn't looking at her heart. She doesn't see it begin to beat faster. She doesn't see the gentle smile that touches Rei's lips. Rei knows she must be seeing the ocean, the water, whoever is in it that Asuka is connected to- perhaps her mother.

A second goes by. Asuka blinks, and her gaze has shifted. She stares at Rei with an eye that reminds Rei of the seas before Third Impact, and Rei knows that Asuka is seeing her.


End file.
